The Lexington Institute is a center-right

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-govern ...

headquartered in

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. It focuses mainly on defense and security policy.

History, staff, and positions

The Lexington Institute was founded in 1998 by former U.S. Representative James Courter (R-NJ), former congressional aide Merrick "Mac" Carey, and former Georgetown University professor Loren B. Thompson, who are the chairman, chief executive officer and chief operating officer of the Institute, respectively. The think tank is based in

and focuses on defense, regulatory policy and logistics. It is sometimes described as conservative. The Lexington Institute is funded in large part by military contractors and other corporations. The institute has gradually moved away from advocating for education reform while retaining its focus on national defense, particularly with regard to technology investment. The Institute has been criticized for its financial relationship with the defense industry; ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'' called the organization the industry's "pay-to-play ad agency" based on its usually favorable assessments of military weapons programs. Loren Thompson is also a consultant to military contractors. In 2011, Thompson said that the current rate of U.S. defense spending was not sustainable. He has also called for a shift in American defense spending towards items such as the

Littoral Combat Ship The littoral combat ship (LCS) is either of two classes of relatively small surface vessels designed for operations near shore by the United States Navy. It was "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeat ...

and the

Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both air superiority and strike missions. It is also able to provide el ...

that can be exported to allies. Thompson wrote that in 2011 that most of the candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination were "unsuited to high office." The Lexington Institute also researches electricity policy and the US electricity grid, including on issues such as

electric grid security Electric grid security in the US refer to the activities that utilities, regulators, and other stakeholders play in securing the national electricity grid. The American electrical grid is going through one of the largest changes in its history, whic ...

, resiliency, the effect of

electric vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes ch ...

s, and

distributed generation Distributed generation, also distributed energy, on-site generation (OSG), or district/decentralized energy, is electrical generation and storage performed by a variety of small, grid-connected or distribution system-connected devices referred to ...

incentives, and issues relating to data privacy and cyber threat information-sharing.See e.g. articles unde
"Energy"
at the Lexington Institute website.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Political and economic think tanks in the United States Libertarian think tanks Libertarian organizations based in the United States